Newborn Conspiracy

Herself.

“I’d like to take you to my house,” Logan said as he pressed some numbers on his tiny phone.

“No.” And Mia left no room for argument. “If your ex-girlfriend is behind this, then your house is off-limits. For that matter, so are you.”

“I own several places.” He ignored her jab. “Genevieve doesn’t know where this house is.”

“I’m still not going there with you. After I’m done nursing Tanner, I’ll make sure no one has followed us and then I’ll drop you off somewhere so that Tanner and I can go home.”

And once there, she would lock the door, turn on the elaborate security system she’d had installed and not go out again unless it was absolutely necessary.

Logan didn’t respond to that, either. That’s because his call connected. Mia heard him request “backup and a clean vehicle,” and he gave the person the address of the fast food place where they were parked. He also ordered someone to go through the surveillance videos of the parking lot of the Wilson Pediatric Clinic, the place where Tanner had just had his checkup.

And the place where the gray car had first followed them.

Of course there’d be surveillance videos of the clinic. She wished she’d thought of that. It might give her some proof as to who this person was.

“Why did you request a car?” Mia wanted to know the moment he ended the call.

“There might be a tracking device on yours,” he calmly answered.

Mia’s reaction certainly wasn’t calm. She hadn’t even considered that. Yet, she should have, especially since it’d already happened once before.

“The clean car should be here in about ten minutes. We’ll trade out vehicles and I’ll have this one searched to see if we can find anything.”

“If there’s a tracking device—”

“I’m keeping watch,” he insisted.

And he was. Logan had one hand on the butt of his gun, and used the other hand to make a second call.

“Logan McGrath,” he greeted the person he phoned. “I need to speak to Collena Drake. No. It’s important. I’ll hold for her.”

Mia recognized the name from the newspaper articles she’d read. Collena Drake was the former San Antonio police sergeant who was now head of the task force to uncover the illegal activity that’d happened at the Brighton Birthing Center. What Mia didn’t know was why Logan was calling her at a time like this.

“Do you think Collena Drake will know something about who’s been following me?” Mia asked.

“Maybe. But even if she doesn’t, I still have to consider that Genevieve is in this neck-deep. Trust me, we don’t want Genevieve involved even in a minor way. She’s got the money and the resources to do all sorts of nasty things. But then, so do I.”

The last part sounded a little like a threat. If the woman was truly guilty, Mia felt like issuing threats—and worse—herself.

“Collena,” Logan greeted a moment later. “I have a problem. I’ve found a possible connected between the Brighton Birthing Center and Genevieve Devereux. I need to go over some things with you. Could you possibly meet me at one-twenty-seven Rosewood Drive on the north side of town? It’s only about ten miles from your office.”

That was Mia’s address. Not that she was surprised that Logan already knew it.

Did he also know that just his mere presence was crushing her heart? She wouldn’t share Tanner with him. Tanner was her life. Her world. And she didn’t want anyone else in that world with them.

Mia continued to listen to his phone conversation, trying to sift through Logan’s responses to see if Collena Drake could provide them with any info. But she was soon distracted from doing that. Tanner stopped sucking, and she knew he was done with his dinner. She quickly fixed her bra.

Still trying to keep the blanket over him, she maneuvered him to her shoulder so she could burp him. The movement caught Logan’s attention, and he watched the process for a moment before turning his attention back to their surroundings.

Thankfully, Tanner gave a quick burp and Mia strapped him back into his carrier seat.

“Collena will meet us at your house,” Logan relayed when she got back behind the wheel. He glanced back at Tanner’s seat again and slipped his phone into his jacket pocket.

“You really think Collena Drake has any information about Genevieve?” Mia asked.

“We’ll see. She’s been studying the records taken from Brighton. There was a legal set of files, but the illegal activity was encrypted in various codes in a separate set of files. Collena’s managed to break some of those codes—that’s why she’s head of the task force—but in some cases she has information but no names to connect to it. It’s like taking dozens of puzzles, mixing up the pieces and then trying to put them back together.”

Mia understood the frustration. “Do any of those pieces actually point to Genevieve?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Her father, George Devereux, was one of Brighton’s main investors. He’s in jail already for an unrelated crime. He claims he didn’t know the clinic was shady when he put up the money.”

“You believe him?”

“No. But there’s no hard evidence to prove otherwise. Once I have you and Tanner settled and safe, I’ll see if I can arrange a visit with my ex’s father.”

Mia could definitely see the benefit of that, but it sounded like yet another involvement that she didn’t want to have.

Logan turned and looked out the back window. “The police are still searching for one investor,” Logan continued. “A man named Donnie Bishop. Unfortunately, Bishop has eluded them by staying at his residence in Mexico. There isn’t enough evidence to extradite him, so the cops are just waiting for him to make a return visit to the States.”

With every new bit of information that Mia learned, she became sorrier and sorrier that she’d ever stepped foot in Brighton. She wished she’d gone anywhere but there for the insemination.

“Donnie Bishop,” she repeated.

But the man’s name rang no bells. It was the first she’d heard of him and she hoped it would be the last. She didn’t want anyone associated with Brighton involved in what was going on with her now. Of course, the alternative wasn’t much easier to accept.

Because the alternative included a criminal, George Devereux, and his unstable stalker daughter, Genevieve.

Logan pointed to the sleek hunter green car that cruised into the parking lot and stopped next to them. “That’s our clean vehicle.”

Mia considered the risks of doing such a transfer, but if Logan was right, if there was indeed a tracking device on her car, then the transfer needed to happen immediately before something else could go wrong. She didn’t want another encounter with that slow-moving gray car that’d been in the parking lot of the pediatric clinic. She didn’t want anyone else to find out where she lived.

A man with long dark hair stepped out from the other vehicle. Logan reached over and unlocked Mia’s door. Unfortunately, his arm brushed against her right breast. Mia reacted. She sucked in her breath.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Her reaction definitely hadn’t been from pain. Odd that even though she was a nursing mother, her breasts were apparently still capable of reacting in a pleasurable way to a man’s touch.

Mia pushed that realization aside.

The other man worked fast. He opened Mia’s door and Logan got out, then walked to her side of the car. She noticed the limp then. It was slight. But it was also an indication that he might not be a hundred percent healed as she’d originally thought.

The man with the long hair made the same smooth transfer with Tanner still in his carrier seat. In less than a minute Logan was behind the wheel and they were back on the road.

“That was one of your employees?” she asked.

He nodded.

She considered asking more about his job but decided it was a subject best left undiscussed. Besides, she didn’t intend for Logan to be in her life for long, so there was no need for her to learn anything else about him.

“So, what do we do next?” she asked.

“We go to your house. We get Tanner inside. And we’ll wait for Collena. She was going to make some calls. By the time she arrives, she might already have answers.”

Well, that would help to speed things along. “Is it possible that your ex-girlfriend was also an investor at the Brighton Center?”

“It’s possible. Collena has someone pouring through all the surveillance tapes that were confiscated from the center. We’re talking months and months of tapes.”

That was not what she wanted to hear. “So much for speeding things along,” Mia mumbled.

He glanced at her. “You know you’re not going to just get rid of me, right?”

She didn’t want to hear that, either. “I know no such thing.”

“I’m not going to leave my son—”

“He’s not your son,” she snapped.

Logan made a hmmmp sound. “Well, I might have started off as the sperm donor, but we’re past that now.”

No. They weren’t. “I don’t want or need a man in my life. That includes you.”

“Then think of it this way. I won’t be the man in your life, Mia. I’ll be the man in Tanner’s life.” He paused, waiting for an objection. “You’re aware that you could be in danger.”

A burst of air left her mouth. Almost a laugh. But she was definitely not happy. “I’m aware of it. I’m also aware that I wouldn’t be in danger if it weren’t for you and your ex.”

He looked as if she’d slapped him.

Mia felt as if she had, too. “Sorry. You didn’t deserve that last part. I mean, we haven’t even connected your ex to this.”

Silence.

The moment crawled by.

Before he finally spoke. “I have a theory.”

That chilled her to the bone. “What?”

More silence. “Last year, when Genevieve and I were still together, I found out that she’d been taking fertility drugs. She also tampered with my condoms.”

Mia was starting to put together a mental image of this woman, and there was little about that image that she liked. “She wanted a baby.”

He nodded. “It was an obsession with her. She believed a baby would bring us closer together. She wanted marriage.”

“You didn’t want those things.” It wasn’t exactly a question.

“Not with her. Genevieve knew that right from the start.”

Mia believed him. Despite what he did for a living, he didn’t seem the sort of man who’d have to lie to get a woman into bed. “Did she get pregnant?”

“I don’t think so. After I found the fertility drugs, we argued and she stormed out. A few days later, I got an e-mail from her saying that she would always love me but that she needed time apart so she could think. That was a little less than eleven months ago.”

Around the time Mia had undergone the insemination.

“Maybe Genevieve did get pregnant,” Mia concluded. “Maybe that’s her connection to Brighton. She could have had your baby there.”

Logan immediately shook his head. “If she’d found some way to overcome her infertility and have my baby, she would have told me. In fact, she would have been delighted to tell me because she would have thought that would get us back together. It wouldn’t have. I would have taken care of my child, but that care wouldn’t have extended to the mother.”

Mia didn’t believe that last part. After all, he was trying to protect her, a stranger. However, she didn’t have the bad blood with him that Genevieve apparently did. They only had a severe case of dislike of each other.

She hoped it continued.

Mia needed all the emotional barriers she could get to make herself immune to this man that her body seemed interested in. Because she could still feel the tingle of his touch on her breast.

Damn him.

He glanced at her and took the final turn into her secluded neighborhood. “But you’re right about one thing,” he continued. “Maybe that’s how Genevieve is connected to Brighton.”

Now, it was Mia’s turn to shake her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Genevieve could have been the one who arranged to have the semen transported from Cryogen to Brighton. That’s how she intended to get pregnant.”

“And then somehow I got the semen by mistake?” Mia shook her head. “That seems like a huge blunder for a medical center to make.”

“We’re talking about Brighton,” he reminded her. “They made a lot of mistakes. Some intentional and some because they were trying to cover up their crimes.”

He took the turn into her driveway. Her house wasn’t a typical burbs kind of place. Mia had bought the three-bedroom ranch-style house because of the privacy. The house was positioned amid several sprawling oaks, shrubs and hedges. Tonight, amid those oaks and in front of her house, she could see a woman.

Mia’s heart started to race.

“It’s all right,” Logan assured her. “That’s Collena Drake.”

Mia got a better look at the woman when they came to a stop directly in front her. The tall, too-thin blonde seemed oblivious to the winter wind. She wore a black coat, unbuttoned, and her bare hands were exposed. The wind whipped at her shoulder-length hair and her clothes. She seemed pale and frail. As if she wasn’t all there.

“Collena,” Logan greeted as he stepped from the car. “I’m glad you came.”

After checking that Tanner was still asleep in his carrier in the backseat, Mia also got out, and Logan made introductions that Collena dismissed by dropping a little bombshell.

“Ms. Crandall, I’ve been going through the Brighton files, and I don’t think the things that happened with your insemination were accidental.”

Okay. Even though Mia and Logan had just played around with that theory, it was a different thing hearing it confirmed. “So, what went wrong?” Mia asked.

Collena Drake opened her mouth to answer, but that was as far as she got. Mia saw the woman’s eyes widen, and she tried to figure out why Collena had that reaction.

Mia caught just a glimpse of the car out of the corner of her eye. A slow-moving gray car. The same vehicle from the parking lot of the pediatric clinic. This time, the passenger’s side window was lowered about halfway. Not enough, though, to see inside the darkened interior.

Everything happened fast.

Almost a blur.

Logan yelled for them to get down. But he didn’t wait for her to comply. He dived at Mia and knocked her to ground. He didn’t stay there. He came up, with his gun drawn and ready to fire.

But it was already too late.

There was a thick, heavy blast from the open window of the gray car. The brutal sound tore through the otherwise quiet community and slammed right past where Mia had just been standing.

But Mia was no longer there and the bullet hit Collena Drake instead.

And the gunman continued to fire.

Chapter Four

Logan cursed, took aim and returned fire.

He didn’t stop with one shot. He sent a barrage of bullets at the gray car, all the while kicking himself for not having done more to protect everyone.

Now, Mia and Tanner were right in the path of danger and Collena Drake was down, perhaps dying.

He could blame himself for that. And later, he would. But right now, he had a more immediate problem that required his complete concentration. The gunman, or perhaps gunmen, inside that gray car could still be trying to kill them.

Logan sent two more shots into the car. One slammed into the passenger-side door, right where a gunman would be sitting if there was indeed more than one of them. The next bullet shattered the partially lowered window. The safety glass webbed into a sheet of broken pebbles and collapsed into the interior of the car.

The gunman was wearing a black ski mask.

That was the only glimpse that Logan got of the lone person shooting at them before the driver stomped on the accelerator and the car sped away.

Logan’s instincts screamed for him to go in pursuit. Adrenaline and anger made him want to strike out, to retaliate, to get the SOB who’d put Collena, Mia and Tanner in danger.

But he couldn’t leave them.

“The baby,” Mia cried out, trying to get out from beneath him.

Logan literally had her flattened on the frozen winter ground so that she couldn’t move and she obviously wanted to get up. He understood that. The baby was in the car and they had to make sure he was okay.

“The car’s bullet resistant,” Logan assured her.

But that didn’t assure her at all. Actually, it didn’t assure him, either. Nothing would at this point except seeing for himself that his son hadn’t been harmed.

Keeping her eyes off his gun, Mia continued to struggle to get up and, once he made sure that the gunman’s vehicle was no longer in sight, Logan moved off her. She rushed to check on Tanner.

Logan kept watch for the gray car, in case the gunman decided to return for another round, and he scrambled across the ground toward Collena.

She was alive, but bleeding from the bullet she’d taken in the shoulder. Blood had already spread across her clothes and it was hard to tell the exact point of impact, but the injury looked close to her heart.

“Tanner’s okay,” Mia shouted to him.

And despite everything else going on, Logan felt immediate relief. “Stay in the car,” he ordered.

The bullet-resistant car would be safer than trying to get them into her house. Especially since he hadn’t had a chance to check her place to make sure that no one was lurking inside. The last thing they needed was to run into another murder attempt.

He took out his phone, called 911 and requested police and an ambulance. He also called for backup from two of his own men. They’d likely get there faster than the police.

“I’ll be okay,” Collena mumbled.

Logan hoped that was true. Still, he didn’t like what he saw when he pulled down the collar of her sweater and spotted the wound. The bullet had missed her heart, thank God, but her collarbone appeared to be shattered and she was bleeding out fast.

He took her neck scarf from her coat pocket and pressed it to the wound. “The ambulance will be here soon.”

“Can I do something to help?” he heard Mia ask.

The car door was open just a fraction, enough for him to see Mia cradling Tanner to her chest. The baby was fussing, probably because his nap had been disturbed, but he looked unharmed.

Logan said a quick prayer of thanks.

“I need to get Collena to the front seat,” he told Mia. He purposely kept his gun at his side so that she wouldn’t see it and have a panic attack.

Mia nodded, reached over the seat and fully opened the front passenger-side door. Logan lifted Collena as gently as he could. She moaned and grimaced from the pain.

Logan lay her inside on the leather seat while he continued to apply pressure to her wound. It wasn’t an ideal way to treat a gunshot victim, but at least the vehicle would protect them from the cold and perhaps even a subsequent attack. In the meantime, he would do what he could to keep Collena from bleeding to death.

“Are you okay?” he asked Mia.

Their eyes met. For a second. He saw the fear and concern. “I wasn’t hurt.”

Maybe not physically. But this attack was the stuff of present and future nightmares. It would stay with her.

And him.

The only good thing he could see in all of this was that Tanner was too young to remember what they’d just experienced.

Logan heard the sirens in the distance. It wouldn’t be long now before the police arrived and before Collena could get the medical treatment she needed.

“Someone doesn’t want us to learn the truth,” Collena whispered.

Logan had to agree with her about that. “We need to know who.” So he could go after this idiot with every ounce of the rage he was feeling for the person who’d endangered his child.

“I’m close to getting that name,” Collena added. “I’ll have it soon.”

“I don’t doubt that we’ll find the truth. But for now, just stay quiet. Conserve your energy.”

Collena shook her head and ran her tongue over her chapped bottom lip. Her breath was ragged and thin. “The police found two sets of files at Brighton—the legal set the Brighton owners and investors created for the world to see. The real files were encrypted with different codes for different files. This afternoon, I finally broke the code on Mia Crandall’s file.”

That got his attention. Mia’s, too. She peered over the seat at the woman.

“There’s one notation that really stood out,” Collena continued. She waited until she took a deep breath. “In Mia’s file there was a notation about a surrogate request. A client paid a huge sum of money for the use of a surrogate with red hair and brown eyes. I don’t know who this person is yet—they were identified by yet another code.”

Logan got a really bad feeling about this.

“What was that doing in my records?” Mia asked.

Collena wearily shook her head. “I’m not sure, exactly. And it’s more complicated.”

The sounds of sirens drew closer and Logan spotted the ambulance when it turned into Mia’s drive.

“Complicated,” Collena repeated. “Because Brighton took money from both you and this other person who made the request. In fact, this person paid nearly ten times what you did, and I think the reason for that was the surrogate wasn’t supposed to know she was a surrogate. The client wanted to keep the arrangement a secret.”

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